Pink Dinner - 10th Anniversary @ Hyatt Horel

The Pink Dinner has established itself as the premier fundraising event for the National Breast Cancer Foundation in Canberra and celebrated this year the tenth anniversary with a jolly good knees up at the Hyatt Hotel. Yes there was dancing in the aisles, on the periphery and around the tables as the ‘Special Entertainment’ courtesy of Melbourne foursome Suede sang some music that was very danceable which is just a bit unusual for this dinner. We love the opera stars, the harmonies of the boy groups and the familiar songs of musical theatre but it takes just one Stevie Wonder song and the girls were throwing caution to the wind. The champagne and dinner wines probably helped.

As a fundraiser it is unique because there are no raffles, auctions or hidden gems to be won by buying champagne, but there is a prize draw where every guest’s name is in the barrel for a prize draw and a formidable collection of 15 ‘Pink Prizes’ distributed. And all guests are encouraged to make a pledge to the NBCF. I won Stephen Moore’s ghd Platinum Edition styler. Why is it his I hear you ask? Well our Wallabies captain is a regular at the Pink Dinner every year with his beautiful and very photogenic wife Courtney, but of course this year the family is in England , but Stephen with his bald head reckons he’s a cert for the ‘ghd styler’. So far he’s missed the prize so if they win the World Cup I’ll give it to him!

Among the guests was Associate Professor Sudha Rao from UC who I first met at a World’s Biggest Morning Tea event a few years ago and went away after spending some time with her absolutely convinced she would be the lady to make a breakthrough in her area of expertise in molecular and cellular biology. There is support for her work from some formidable areas of financing with on this occasion Brand Hoff, a man working hard in his retirement from IT, singing her praises and happily fronting up for a photo opportunity wearing his purple pearls from New Orleans, probably nonchantly tossed from a balcony as they do in that city of music, gumbo and the hurricane – the drink not the gulf storms. But Brand Hoff is serious about getting the lovely Sudha Rao all the support he can.

Will we see the end of breast cancer in our lifetime? Or will it be the next generation who’ll benefit. While this insidious disease continues to be the scourge of women we must keep the research funded and supported. And the Pink Dinner might just become the night to dance until we drop for breast cancer.